


Salutis Populi Suprema Lex

by GoldStarGrl



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Bulimia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gob and Lindsey don't hang out that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salutis Populi Suprema Lex

**Author's Note:**

> "Salutis Populi Suprema Lex" is Latin for "The safety of the people is the highest law."

One night in eighth grade she looked out her bedroom window to see his long legs dangling over the panes.

She stuck her head out and looked up at her sixteen-year-old brother sitting on the edge of the roof, a cigarette in one hand, and bottle of cheap beer in the other. He gripped both of them so hard his knuckles turned white. His eyes were wide, glassy, and unseeing.

"Gob?"

He started, glancing down at her. For a moment, he seemed confused by her very existence. Then he frowned.

"What do you want?" His voice was raspy from smoking.

"Can I come up there?" 

She expected him to scoff and shove her away, like he always did with her. Like he always did with everyone.

Instead he leaned down and held out his hand. 

Quickly shaking off her shock, she gripped it. He pulled her up and let go, leaving her to scramble for balance on the shingles.

"What are you doing up here?" She asked, once she had situated herself on the bit of roof next to him. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then he tilted his head up to the sky and sighed.

"I got Eve pregnant." He was abnormally quiet, nearly swallowing his words.

Lindsey's eyes widened to the size of saucers. She had only met her brother’s girlfriend once. She had dark hair and a loud voice and was really, _really_ Catholic.

"Mom and Daddy are going to kill you."

"Mom and Dad aren't going to know anything." He said, his voice rising sharply. Lindsey shrunk back in fear and he leaned back on his boney elbows, taking a long swig from his beer. "and neither am I."

"What does that mean?"

"Look, if you want to ask a bunch of stupid questions go hang out with Michael. Otherwise shut up and drink."

She took a few sips of his beer. It was warm and flat in her mouth, with the faint current of tang and bitters, like he'd crushed something into it. Gob pulled it a way from her before she could really get into it. His whole body jerked, in a strange, slow motion shudder. 

 “Fuck, Linds.” He said. His hands were shaking; He was waving cigarette smoke everywhere. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

 She didn’t know what to do. She just pried his smoke and drink from his trembling fingers and threw them to the ground. They watched as they soared through the summer air and crashed on the sidewalk below.

“I need to get out of here.” He whispered. He clutched Lindsey’s arm so tightly she almost cried out. “Lindsey, I got to get out of here. We need to get out of here. We’ll never be famous and good and beautiful here. We need to leave.”

She was too scared to move. She stayed with him until the sun came up, and he muttered those words over and over again.

_We need to leave. We need to leave. We need to leave._

It would be a few years before he tried to make good on them.

She would be there for that too.

She always was, for things like these.

 

* * *

 

_ORANGE COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT REPORT_

_The following is a transcript of an arrest made August 13th, 1988, at 2:19 AM._  

  
_**OFFICER WINTERS:** Sir, have you been drinking tonight?_

_**Unknown Male** : Have-Have you been sucking tonight? _

_**Unknown Female:** [Laughter]_

_**Unknown Male:** Cause-Cause he sucks. Get it Linds? Get it?_

_**OFFICER WINTERS:** How old are you?_

_**Unknown Female:** Fif-fifteen._

_**Unknown Male:** I don't remember._

_**OFFICER WINTERS:** You don't remember how old you are? _

_**Unknown Male:** I'm [unclear] musician-no...magician! Age is just an illusion._

_**OFFICER WINTERS:** Miss, do you know this man?_

_**Unknown Female:** He's my brother. _

_**OFFICER WINTERS** : Really._

_**Unknown Female:** He's gonna take me to Las Vegas and I'm gonna be beautiful! I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be so fucking gorgeous._

_**Unknown Male:** I'm-I'm famous. Gonna be. My name is Gob Bluth-_

_**OFFICER WINTERS:** Job? Your name is Job? _

_**Unknown Male:** -And I'm-I'm gonna be-the great-[vomits]_

_**Unknown Female:** [Screams]_

_**OFFICER WINTERS:** Both of you need to step out of the car._

_END TRANSCRIPT_

G _eorge Bluth Jr., 18 and Lindsey Bluth, 15, were both found to have BACs of over .11. George Bluth Jr. was found to have traces of cocaine and Flunitrazepam in his system. They were driving a car registered to their father George Bluth Sr., which he had reported stolen earlier that night._

_BAIL FOR George Bluth Jr.: $1500_

_BAIL FOR Linsdey Bluth: $500_

 

* * *

  

“What’s with your hair?” He asked, his words slurred. 

Lindsey sighed and turned to face her brother. He had stumbled into her dressing room ten minutes before the wedding was supposed to start and flopped onto his stomach on the fainting couch. His eyes were unfocused, his suit crumpled and his bow-tie askew. He reeked of scotch.

She hadn't even tried to shoo him away. It's not like anyone else was helping her get ready.

“I don’t wash it with anything that’s been tested on animals.” She looked back at the mirror. Her blonde hair was waist-length and wavy, slightly frizzy from the lack of organic, eco-friendly conditioner in Orange County. She smoothed her white dress down over her flat stomach and took a deep breath, fixing her brightest smile onto her face. “How do I look?”

“Wha...? Fine. Healthy.”

Her smile dropped. She spun around, her eyes sharp with hurt.

“'Healthy' is Mother’s word for ‘fat'.”

Gob groaned, rolling onto his back. 

"What the fuck, Lindsey. I don’t know. Relax 'er something.”

Her face felt hot. Her dress suddenly felt too tight, and she knew that's what everyone else would see too; A pig stuffed into a white silk sock. She kicked off her sandals and ran to the in-suite bathroom. her knees buckled and she fell against the toilet, the billowing skirt of her gown spreading out on the linoleum floor.

Without even having to think about it, her body convulsed and she retched, throwing up her breakfast into the bowl. She could hear Gob muttering outside, the rapid-fire, uneven voice she’d heard him swing into a thousand times. 

_“It's not-not-not fair. First Michael, then Lindsey, everyone’s pairing-p-p-pairing up, like little salt shakers, except for Gob, no, not Gob_ …

“SHUT UP!” She yelled, her throat stinging and the acidic smell of her own sick making her eyes water. “Take one of your stupid pills and GET LOST!” 

When she wiped her mouth and came out, he was gone.  

She didn’t even see him at the church.

 

* * *

 

Some people balance each other out.

Michael was calculating while George Sr. was foolish. 

George-Michael was cautious where Maeby was fearless.

The perfect amount of give and take, yin and yang. They keep the boat from rocking too far in one direction, they make sure the fire stays lit, but manageable.

Gob and Lindsey weren't like that.

When they got together, the boat crashed and sank, the fire raged out of control, burning down the trees and beaches and all the little houses in the OC, lined up like a row of flaming cocktails. 

They made the world dark and crazy and the ground wasn't so solid, anymore.  

They made each other explode. And the blast tore everything around them apart. 

They couldn't let that happen.

Not anymore.


End file.
